20 Farmers’ Bulletin 1185. 
One man is needed to drive the team and another to operate the 
machinery, if a power outfit is used. The number of men needed 
with a hand pump depends upon its size; the smaller pumps can be 
worked by one man, but the larger ones require two men or even 
three, each working two-thirds of the time. 
Twenty-five acres can be covered easily in a day with a 10-nozzle 
machine, and this’ speed, with the low cost and the protection given 
to both crops at one operation, makes the spraying method superior 
to all others for the control of the alfalfa weevil. The actual cost 
is about $1 per acre, and growers who did the work for their neigh- 
bors in 1919 charged from 75 cents to $2, in addition to the cost of the 
poison, which was 60 cents per acre. 
The results of the work begin to appear in about three days, and 
many dead larve can then be found, but the full effect is not obtained 
until the fifth day. By that time from two-thirds to nine-tenths 
of the larve have perished and the field takes on a brighter green. 
Remarkable contrasts are often produced by leaving a small strip 
unsprayed, as shown in figure 3. 
DANGER OF POISONING STOCK. 
There have been many inquiries as to the danger of poisoning 
live stock by feeding sprayed hay, which are all answered by the 
fact that such hay is shown by analyses and feeding tests to contain 
too little poison of any kind to injure farm animals. Many of the 
cattle which are fed upon it probably take in more arsenic with 
their drinking water than with their hay, and as for the lead con- 
tent, few of them would under any circumstances live long enough 
to show the least effect of it. 
CONCLUSION. 
Seldom has any newly recommended method of insect control been 
so thoroughly safeguarded against failure as alfalfa weevil spray- 
ing. It has been tested every season for seven years, and the con- 
ditions necessary to success have been carefully ascertained. It is 
believed that most of the difficulties have been provided against, and 
it is certain that the farmers who tried it in 1919 are satisfied. The 
cost of the operation is trifling compared with the returns. Im- 
provements will doubtless be made in the machinery and the arsenical 
poisons, but the method is at present a practical success, and no 
farmer in the territory infested or threatened by the alfalfa weevil 
can afford to overlook it. 
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